ALL children should have the opportunity to be involved in shared education, the education minister said yesterday.
John O'Dowd underlined his department's commitment to sharing with the publication of a new policy document.
The Sharing Works policy sets out the proposed way forward for shared education and provides a framework to ensure it is embedded throughout the system "ensuring a high quality, shared learning experience is delivered for every child".
Government focus in recent years has moved away from promoting integrated education in favour of shared models. Typically, shared education involves neighbouring Catholic and state-sector schools working together. Integrated schools educate Catholic and Protestant children under one roof.
The new policy sets out 14 "key actions", which include the Department of Education bringing forward a bill which will provide a statutory definition and provide a power to encourage and facilitate shared education.
In addition, the department is making £25 million available between now and 2018 for schools that have already engaged in collaborative working.
There will also be opportunities to "develop innovative options for sharing" including shared campuses involving schools from different sectors.
Mr O'Dowd said the education system mirrored historical divisions in society. There had been a long history of community relations work in schools and youth organisations throughout the period of conflict, however.
Building on our existing educational structures, he said, shared education offered the opportunity to "create a more integrated education system".
He added that integrated schools had provided an alternative to education on largely religiously separated lines in response to parental demand. His department, he added, would continue to support and adhere to its statutory duty to encourage and facilitate the development of integrated education.
"Shared education provides an overarching approach in which schools of all management types, including integrated schools, are encouraged and facilitated to provide further opportunities for the education together of our children and young people," Mr ODowd said.
"Indeed, by supporting shared education, it is envisaged that a proportion of schools may move along the continuum to a more fully integrated model."
The new policy addresses recommendations made by the assembly education committee following its inquiry into shared and integrated education and also recent recommendations from a ministerial advisory group.
"We know that a key feature of high performing education systems are equality and inclusion promoted through shared education and this policy will of course sit within a broader education policy framework designed to improve educational outcomes for young people," Mr O'Dowd said.
"My vision for the future of shared education is one of vibrant, self-improving education communities delivering educational benefits to learners, encouraging the efficient and effective use of resources, and promoting equality of opportunity, good relations, equality of identity, respect for diversity and community cohesion."
